Words' Stock Can Rise And Fall

Word Watch

October 01, 1997|By ROB KYFF

The meanings of words, like the prices of stocks and bonds, rise and fall through the years.

Our ubiquitous ``bland''-ishment ``nice,'' for instance, wasn't always so nice. Derived from the Latin ``nescire'' (to be ignorant), ``nice'' bumbled along as a penny stock in the 14th century, bearing lowly meanings such as ``foolish,'' ``ignorant'' and ``stupid.''

During the 15th century, it upticked slightly to mean ``lascivious, loose.'' When Shakespeare spooned out, ``For when my hours were nice and lucky,'' he was referring to the wanton soup of youthful dissipation.

In the 1600s, ``nice'' rallied to mean ``extravagant, elegant, tender.'' But during the 17th century it slipped into ``over- refined, intricate, difficult,'' even ``coy,'' as in ``nice Morn,'' John Milton's description of a teasing sunrise.

In the 19th century, ``nice'' rose again to mean ``refined, cultured, discriminating.'' The last meaning survives in our phrase, ``that's a nice distinction.''

And ``nice,'' of course, has been the growth stock of the 20th century -- a real Coca-Cola blue chip. As our number-one word for ``agreeable, pleasant,'' this most recent ``nice'' guise finishes first.

So while the phrase ``lean, urbane, revolutionary pioneer'' would be an accolade today, once it would have been an insult.

Speaking of lean, urbane pioneers, any stockbroker will tell you that what goes up must come down. Through a process linguists call ``pejoration,'' from the Latin ``pejor'' (worse), many words descend from nice to nasty.